Telecommunications provider JDS Uniphase reported late July a loss of US$50.6 billion in fiscal year 2001, the highest corporate loss in North America's recent economic history.
Not to mention the one-time stock market star Lucent Technologies: the New Jersey-based high-tech company has been able to ward off bankruptcy court proceedings only by the skin of its teeth so far.
The corporation with the stock market initials LU will dismiss a quarter of its staff, fired its former chairman and has just announced a quarterly loss of US$1.89 billion. Even the ex-darling of economic analysts, Cisco Systems, has just presented a gloomy financial report for the last quarter.
Profits melted to a mere seven million dollars from 800 million. No doubt about it -- manufacturers of infrastructure for Internet are embroiled in a grave crisis. Their shares are worth only a fraction of the previous price.
The providers for the World Wide Web, like most companies in the technology sector, are suffering the consequences of the shaky US and global economy.
Many companies either disappeared from the market or were pushed to the brink of insolvency when the Internet bubble burst, others are pursuing a rigid austerity policy.
Cisco has been left sitting on its production. Chairman John Chambers has struggled to gradually break down his high inventories.
A just-published analysis by Credit Suisse First Boston predicted that demand for computers would fall for the first time this year. Up to a few weeks ago, the same bank merely spoke of zero growth.
This revision serves to illustrate the general trend in the US. Wall Street's analysts have been saying for a long time that the economy would start to recover in the fourth quarter of this year.
Now the date for an upturn is being pushed further forward into the coming year.
For his part, Cisco's Chambers is repeating his projection that the company could repeat growth rates of 30-50 percent but the number of watchers who share his kind of optimism is falling every day.
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